“You’ve heard that quite a bit in your life, haven’t you?”
“I believe it, too.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and entwined his fingers with mine. Tugging me toward the back of the shop, he led me to a ladder leading up to the barn’s loft. “My brother and I spent a lot of time up here as kids. We’d watch my dad and uncles in the fields or whittling at wood. Sometimes they’d be doing something on the tractors or haying. We’d work, too, but we’d also hide and dare each other to jump from the loft to the piles of hay or leaves we’d stack on the ground below before our dad found the heap.”
Climbing the ladder ahead of him, I scanned the dark loft, the only light coming from a security post in the yard, the soft yellow glow surreal where it splashed over the barren area. Stray straw littered the floor, and a few pieces of completed woodwork sat propped against the walls, leaving the area before the large double doors open.
“Did y’all jump?” I asked.
He followed me into the loft, his soft laughter surrounding us. “More often than not, we chickened out. We got bolder as we got older though. I’ve made that jump plenty now. It’s kind of like a rite of passage I guess. I found my nephews up here one afternoon daring each other to do the same.” He walked over to the open doors and looked out into the night. “After that, Chris talked Dad into keeping one of the work trucks parked beneath the doors, the back full of hay. The drop isn’t as far that way, and it reduces the risk a little.”
“Why not just forbid them from coming to the barn?” I asked, joining him.
He grinned. “You’re talking about full on country boys here. We’ve got a lot of common sense, but we don’t always use it. Especially when it comes to adrenaline or acts of nonsensical bravery. Besides, this isn’t a big barn, not like the large working ones on the Parker farm. The drop isn’t that bad. With age, the fall looks less and less daunting.”
My gaze found his in the soft yellow light. “Now who’s being deep?” I asked with a smile.
He gestured at the night. “You should jump.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Jump,” he said. “Here, I’ll even go first.”
Without another word, he was gone, his body taken by the night. There was a light thud, a quick laugh, and then, “Your turn.”
Hesitating at the door, I glanced over the edge to find Heathcliff standing on a pile of hay in the back of a truck, his dimly lit face full of amusement. He was right, the fall wasn’t far, but it also wasn’t sensible.
“We’re not kids,” I called down.
He threw his hands up into the air. “We’re not quite adults yet either, Hawthorne. Embrace that. Jump. Don’t be afraid to fall.”
With his palms up, his hands suddenly seemed as important as his feet. It was like I hadn’t really met him, I’d met pieces of him, first his shoes, then his hands and face, each of them adding up to become something larger than they would have been had I noticed them all at once.
“Jump, Hawthorne,” he insisted, his voice gentle.
Inhaling the night air, I looked out over the yard, over the security lit and moonlit fields, and I did the most irrational thing I’d done in my life up until that point. I followed him down.
Air rushed toward me as I jumped, my feet hanging in the sky one moment and then standing in hay the next, my breath coming in laugh-induced pants, Heathcliff’s hands spanning my waist.
He laughed with me. “That’s the first unplanned thing you’ve ever done, isn’t it?” he asked.
My giggles tapered off, my head lifting to meet his. “And if it was?”
His gaze became serious, his eyes studying my flushed cheeks. “I like being part of your firsts,” he whispered. “It’s more exciting than jumping from barns. I’m seeing the world all over again, and in a whole new way.”
His head lowered, and my lips parted, more prepared this time for the warm press of lips that followed. His fingers slid up my back from my waist, bunching my shirt in his fists as he went, the cool night air brisk on revealed skin.
My hands found his shoulders, my fingers digging into the long-sleeve T-shirt he wore, my short nails pressing into the tense muscles beneath. His tongue invaded my mouth, gently sweeping against mine, insistent but slow, as if time had stopped.
It was cold outside, but in the back of that truck, it was warm. The hay dug through my jeans to irritate the skin on my ankles. It should have bothered me, but it didn’t. The only thing that mattered was the moment. The only thing that mattered was that I’d jumped, that I’d bridged some strange gap between my childhood and my future.
A voice called out from the house beyond, and Heathcliff pulled away, his chest rising and falling as he glanced up into the darkness.